Ru--the City of Fear + Chambers of the Dark Suffering

( I make a lot of things for my campaign which will never be for sale, because they're made out of online OSR resources. This one was constructed without moving from my couch with maps from Donjon (sorry Dave's Mapper, Donjon has room numbers) and stocked using only the Dungeon Dozen, Abulafia, Tarsos Theorem and this. Hyperlinks just go to the source generators.)

Ru the City of Fear

A Clever Philosopher Seeks The Ring of Night. Unfortunately, it is in the possession of his  mysterious former mistress. Whoever would acquire it must brave an abandoned city rumored to be home to scorpions, poisonous snakes, a sandman, and the Seeker of The Unshriven Light. 

Random Encounters on the Way (roll every 2 hours traveling, every 10 mins in the city):

1-15 = That # of Maggotmen. Most of these maggotmen are emaciated and carry a club of some kind. They are ruled by the whisperings of a bizarre idol and go into battle with 1-2 gigantic monsters ( trolls, etc.). They are headquartered in a cathedral.

16-17 The Unfathomable Minstrels

18 The Overlord of Thirst

19-21 The Changeling of The Desert Waste

22-25 The Knightly Parliament of the Chalices

26-27 A dwarven sorcerer (-Lvl 6-)

28-29 A doctor

30 A female halfling barbarian (-Lvl 5-), ex-lover of an NPC known to the players

31-00 No encounter

An ancient decaying seaside town, where fiendish mutant octopi dwell in the sewers, waiting to pull down anyone who walks too close to the storm drains

A lake of ammonia

A. Ancient army of a forgotten culture frozen in its tracks while on the march (trajectory points to ruined city)

B. Iron Mountain: massive meteorite, possible trigger of ancient apocalypse, sole source of heavy metals, riddled with mines, source of perpetual conflict between power

C. Giant fire god dying of old age: immobilized by the ravages of eons, willing to whisper secrets to the reverent

D. Tundolu Two-heads: first head wears wizard hat, second head gagged and blindfolded, if blindfold removed issues bolts of reality-tearing energy that rapidly tunnel through to adjacent dimensions, if un-gagged hollers obscenity-laden revelations re: the true nature of the universe. You find this individual performing an autopsy on a dead eldritch horror. They are  annoying. They have the ability to selectively shrink or enlarge small parts of things.

F. Network of impressive stone watchtowers. Nesting site for flock of undead vultures, hunker down during daylight, search for carrion by night guided by red searchlight beams from empty eye sockets

G. Chambers of the Dark Suffering, Level 1:

1. Dead end stair leading down, terminates in illusion-concealed pit filled with green slime

2. Rival party of adventurers hiding from you.

3. Howling chasm houses large hive of chaos flies, rapidly multiplying and growing more bold in their choice of prey

4. Ugos Cleaverhand, Bastard Son of the Axe God. You find this individual digging a hole in an innocuous location. They are laughing. They have the ability to bisect things into perfect halves by pointing at them. Once, long ago, they replaced their head with a constantly shifting puzzle-cube. They currently have a living tattoo that makes scintillating conversation.

5. Study:

-One potion erases all spells from memory, follow-up potion contains liquefied memorizations of alternate spell set, saving throw vs. involuntary 8 hour nap required

-Semi-animate shrunken head of(wizard's) former  mentor for consultation

-Caltrops, fecund: once placed, double in number every ten minutes for one hour.

6. Traps around perimeter: tripwire activated catapults loaded w/nails and glass

7. Casks and kegs filled with ichors, blood, bile, and other assorted body fluids

8-9.  Helmets conceal Portuguese Man-o-war-like gasbag heads, robes obscure hundreds of black tendrils that paralyze, poison, and sting like hell

10. Box full of recently forbidden books earmarked for burning but nobody's gotten around to it yet.

11. Evil hobbits hired to assassinate necromancer try to remain unseen while attempting to flee the dungeon.

12. Vast upthrust inhuman fist of polished marble clutching countless tiny humans, surrounded by heaps of tiny humans in various states of brokenness, a real bummer. Fog of Amnesia: renders those within its influence utterly clueless until they escape, wizards lose random spells

13. Heap of funerary ashes w/unidentifiable bone fragments

14. d100 Swords of Damocles, tapestry of webs depicting events in spider history

15. Scything blade trap just inside the doorway, rusted in sprung position

16. Tall, imposing robed figures with impala heads, flaming eyes, practitioners of obscure magics but more than capable with signature glowing shamshirs, never condescend to actually speak to humans, communicate via nods, looks, posture and/or lengthy written correspondence, pursue their own inscrutable aims that at times run parallel to those of parties of dungeoneers

17.  Walls composed of stone with dimly luminous veins of an unknown compound

18. (As 8-9) + Metal-eater bomb: explosion sends scintillant powder into air, destroys metal weapons, armor and implements at the molecular level

19. Subtle shifting causes doors to jam, must be smashed but doing so results in possibly injurious door jamb collapse

20. Warpack of puny humanoids, armed to teeth, search for rumored evil hobbit assassins but minimally enthusiastic due to crappy pay, poor benefits package. Door trap-- Idiocy bomb: goes off with a resounding howl of mocking laughter, forces w/in range reduced to sub-moronic gibbering, yet retain full measure of self-confidence

21.  Retriever: seeks and fetches specific magic items required by dark master, specializes in live capture of sought individuals, noted for minimally damaging soft bite.

22.  Moebius pit: opens on floor and ceiling, equal chance of falling in either direction, fall indefinitely, passing through pit room from opposite trap door, damaging collisions possible w/party members falling in other direction. Ceiling-crawling dungeon leeches as long as your arm, several bloated w/caustic troll blood

23. Giant amoeboid in state as close to ecstasy as it can achieve, positively stuffed with entire clan of puny humanoids, partially digested, tiny armaments, loincloths, coins excreted continuously, couldn't possibly pass another thing through semi-permeable cell wall

24. Large transparent ooze w/two struggling humans inside busy looking for private spot to digest cult warriors that took wrong turn

25. A half-melted sword.

26. Purple baptismal pond of indelible staining

27. Door made entirely of doorknobs: must turn correct knobs in succession for entry

28. Trap glyphs on doors: Whosoever touches the glyph becomes a monster: mouth transmutes into that of great white shark, eyes become lifeless, like a doll's eyes, singular urge: bite everyone to death

29. Black pudding w/ossified exterior, apparently some kind of defense mechanism, slowly cracks open to resume oozing about once danger has passed

Level 2:

1.Deformed skull with magic mouth spell welcomes visitors.

2. Three trolls eating each other

3. Black crystal statue (valuable?) causes horrid hallucinations.

4. This room is ON FIRE because salamander.

5. Shield wall. This wall is made of shields.

6. Morose lizardmen, craving leadership milk.

7. Gelatinous pits: cubes mined from here.

8. Needle trap on locked doors.

9. Room swaps brains, removes memories, till you leave.

10. Illusionary spike trap hides real trapdoor to pit. Pit has treasure.

11. Giant crystal, mostly shattered. Recently.

12. Oubliette. Skeletal prisoners, signs of furious, futile scrabbling.

13. Magical mirror shows past adventuring groups passing through.

14. Four casks full of salted eel.

15. Shrine: Statue of a headless goblin.

16. 4 champions of chaos, preparing for war

17. Several empty animal cages with doors ripped off

18. Floating giant heart, beating above stained marble tile.

19. Remains of a burned library

20. Black lotus in shadows. Releases spores when illuminated.

21.  Rune that paralyzes with a staggering, true revelation.

22. Corpse in crypt not Withered King, despite tombstone.
23. Fountain provides highly mutagenic "water".

24. Library of lost books. Research anything (1d100 days).

25. Library, intact, being browsed by dark creeper.

26. Battle Princess wrestling six-armed abomination for silver treasure.

27. Scattered remains of statue, put together is PC.

28. Marble Sphinx will answer three questions, painfully truthful.
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The Quality of A Ritual

We all tend to like rituals, but when it comes to actually describing them in games we tend to choose one of two options:

-Verrrrry specific rituals that basically only end up getting used once for a specific effect, or
-Abstracted ideas about rituals like "Requires 800gp worth of materials" that are generally useful but lack flavor.

For Demon City, we tried to get a little deeper into how the systems of ritual worked. Here's Zedeck Siew with Corpse Oil rituals...

CORPSE OIL 
(a riff off Nam Man Prai, which is from the Thai phram (shamanic) folk tradition)

The act itself is relatively simple: chanting scripture, you hold a candle under the chin of a recently dead person. The air is rancid. Yellow, fatty fluid seeps from the crisping flesh.

Corpse oil has many uses. One chin yields a jam-jar-ful. Potency depends on provenance. If a corpse is:

- Beloved.
- A young woman.
- A virgin, until death.
- Your blood relation.
- Killed in grisly violence.
- Killed by your own hand.
- Properly buried and mourned.

Then each of the above conditions increases the quality and potency of the oil. In game terms each confers a “point” of Intensity.

~

Mixing in consecrated philtres, speaking the proper spells, a necromancer may prepare corpse oil in several ways.

As an ointment, on contact with skin, it can confer the following effects (In order of quality of oil required)

Requires only corpse oil—the quality is irrelevant
- Wheezing fatigue.
- An inability to recognise faces.
- Bad breath that spoils food.
- The ability to talk to gravestones.

Requires an oil of Intensity 2.
- Wracking back pains.
- An inability to use stairs.
- A musk that attracts vermin.
- The ability to command birds.

Requires an oil of Intensity 3.
- Night terrors.
- An inability to feel pain.
- An odour that repulses women.
- The ability to query reflections.

Requires an oil of Intensity 4.
- Miscarriage.
- A strong sexual attraction to you.
- A bright glow visible to evil entities.
- The ability to dictate card games.

Requires an oil of Intensity 5.
- Liver failure.
- Susceptibility to your suggestions.
- A touch that burns holy persons.
- Invincibility, when holding breath.

As a grease, ritually applied to a single building’s foundations, it lends the structure special virtues:

Requires only corpse oil—the quality is irrelevant
- Unnaturally stuffy.
- Deals made here cannot lose you money.

Requires oil of Intensity 3
- Gives restless sleep.
- Residents are inclined to obey you.

Requires oil of Intensity 5.
- Sounds do not carry.
- Doors are always open for you.

Requires oil of Intensity 6.
- Traps disquiet spirits.
- Irresistibly draws the eye.

Requires oil of Intensity 7
- Confuses your enemies.
- Cannot be demolished.

As a fetish, a jar wrapped in yellow talisman paper, it fetters the ghost of the person from which it came. This spirit:

Requires an oil of Intensity 3:
- Cramps or twists muscle, with a touch.
- Manifests a corporeal, unspoiled body.
- Speaks with the voice of anyone living.
- Roams beyond the sight of its fetish jar.

Requires an oil of Intensity 6
- Exudes steamy, flesh-eating ectoplasm.
- May possess any male-identified person.
- Captures the souls of un-weaned babies.
- Banishes other ghosts with its presence.
- Steals air from the lungs of living things.
- Does not remember anything of its past.

Each preparation comes with a unique command mantra. Those who speak this formula are masters who the corpse oil cannot harm, and must obey.

~

Without its command mantra, corpse oil effects can only be lifted by ritual healing (Heal the Flesh ritual, etc). Effective treatment depends on who’s treating. If an exorcist is:

- A priest or religious ascetic.
- From a different religious tradition.
- Celibate.
- Vegetarian.
- Of non-human lineage.
- Related to a royal family.
- Master of their own corpse-oil ghost.

Each of the above conditions improve the quality and strength of the exorcism. You may disrupt one corpse-oil effect per condition met.

If the exorcism’s total number of conditions exceeds the corpse oil’s total quality, the substance is destroyed. If not, the corpse oil’s effects return after C10 (that is pick a card 1-10) days.
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Donate to the Demon City Kickstarter here

The Glistening Chamber Codex (or The Nyctythatic Text)

The earliest fragments containing any element of the text appear in Chalcolithic-era Sumeria in cuneiform script. It has been convincingly argued that they are not Sumerian in origin, showing a certain rigidity of grammar suggesting metaphors too-literally translated from older sources.  Even in this earliest incarnation the text references the “narrow tower banded in red higher than all the city” (alu) under the domed roof of whose “highest room” (itima) sits the “glistening” heresiarch by whom the text was commissioned, as well as calculations and (accurate) astronomical observations relevant to the system of “chambers” which forms the text’s core. In some versions the author describes their work as both “counting the city” and in others as “counting the gods”.

Later Assyrian sources are extremely similar, as are Babylonian fragments—though the latter describe the work as “counting the roads” and “counting the prisoners”. There is some evidence of the Babylonian text having been politicized. A version found in Beth Nuhadra refers to the work being commissioned by “a lord in a chamber” with “eyes that speak and this mouth is light”.

A Chinese oracular text of the Spring and Autumn Period (ruthlessly suppressed by the Zhou dynasty) known as the “Court of the Red Marquess” or “Palace of Folding Rooms” is mathematically similar to all of these versions in many respects, though some of the astronomical data appears to contain bodies not yet identified.

The first reference to the necessity of “dividing” or “disordering the chambers” appears in the works of an unnamed Ionian geometer of the 5th century BCE. Modern scholarship is unsure whether the suggestion that dividing the chapters of the “concentric text” one from the next into an “anti-text” is a serious philosophical suggestion or ironic in the manner of Xenophanes’ satires of Pythagoras around the same time.

A papyrus with related formulae distributed around the late first century in a mixture of Coptic and Demotic Egyptian refers to “Sixty Devices and Twelve Plagues Yet Unnamed” (Thirteen in one version). Like many texts of this period it is alleged to be a copy or fragment of the so-called “Book of Thoth”. Some scholars have claimed the Library of Alexandria was burned specifically to destroy it.

The actual Glistening Chamber Codex appears in the historical record thereafter: 12.5 inches tall, 8.4 inches wide, bound in an unidentified leather and written on goat(?)skin parchment, purporting to be a Latin translation of a Greek translation of a text discovered in “The script of Canaanites” (probably Hebrew). By all accounts it was, despite clear evidence of handling and travel, a textually undamaged and continuous mathematical and philosophical treatise describing a system of occult knowledge based on the concept of a series of 78 (“sixty and then six and six and six again”) “essential chambers” in which certain archetypal events and persons occur and, properly manipulated, can be expected to “swallow themselves” and reveal other “chambers of another city”. The most intriguing fact about the Codex was not appreciated until the 19th century, when the logosyllabic cuneiform of the aforementioned Sumerian fragments was translated and the texts were found to be nearly identical to the Codex.

The book was first found in the library of the astronomer and gambler Nyctythasis, condemned to death by dismemberment after the synod of Zaragoza in 380 as an addendum to the condemnation of Priscillianism. Sources within the church thereafter refer to the book (inevitably in hushed tones and only in private commnications) as “The Nyctythatic Text”.

Efforts to destroy the codex and the philosophy it espoused (or was alleged to espouse) had decidedly mixed success—throughout the esoteric writings of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, even in Christian texts, there are allusions to “a locus concentrycal”, “a chambred laborynth”, “chambres that go glisnynge a midde towres” and “blacker sterres incased wythyn the brycht sterres visyble” and 15th century grimoires such as the Synapothanumenon are considerably more explicit.

Certain temples in Uttar Pradesh constructed during India’s Pala period seem to be mathematically inconceivable without access to the Glistening Chamber formulae.

The book itself does not reappear in any records until the late 1400s when the Italian-suited Tarot de Marseille had become popular as a gaming deck, likely originating across the Mediterranean. At this point the Codex fell into the hands of the Augsburg merchant, occultist and manuscript collector Claus Spaun who immediately recognized the congruity of imagery and numerology between the system described in the Codex and the then-current version of the tarot playing-card deck, especially considering Classical commentary that the chambers should be “disordered” and “divided”. The Tarot was simply an attempt to place the Chambers in their proper order. Rather than publish his discoveries, Spaun elected to continue his researches in secret and the book itself passed into rumor for the next 500 years. Word of the conjunctions Spaun had found within esoteric circles eventually lead Antoine Court de Gébelin to publish his own theories of the occult meaning of the Tarot in 1781, although there is no evidence Gébelin ever had access to the Codex.

The original Codex was last seen in the hands of British linguist and architect Frederick Chester-Harping (a protege of Sir John Soane and Joseph Michael Gandy) who suffocated to death in 1873 while attempting to construct a building replicating the principles of the Codex in an unknown location. However, handmade copies have allegedly been found in the archives of industrialist and art collector J Paul Getty and in a public library in the abandoned coal-fire town of Centralia, Pennsylvania.

From Demon City, which you can support here.

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Ooh OSR- 5e Character Sheet

David Shugars of The Nth Decree made this, for my 5e hack--I'll be using it...

Fillable pdf version here

d10 Awful Things To Say When Something Bad Happens To Their Skin

A lot of horror is just in how you say it.

1, It darkens and curls off like a leaf in a fire, batwing-shaped

2, It begins to drag and strip away in peals. like when tissue paper gets wet

3, It explodes in small, filthy yellowed bubbles that sag in on themselves instead of pop

4, It begins to run and then drip the way plastic melts, hanging in long hanging drops

5, It turn drier and tighter, ripping like paper showing red underneath

6, The veins and arteries in your arm pulse and writhe with something that isn't your blood

7, It's as if you're wrapped in some synthetic fabric that doesn't breathe but there's nothing there

8, A meniscus forms, like an algae, it feels like someone else's skin all around yours

9, There's a hot and cold like a needle or a staple's punched in and then dragged around your neck muscle while still anchored

10. You know, cherry pie filling? It feels like that, warm, and the cherries are made of saliva
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Ice Storm

From the upcoming Frostbitten & Mutilated (formerly Black Metal Amazons of the Devoured Land)

Place these on the random encounter table in polar regions:

Ice Storm--The weather is piercing, impossible, moving forward is hard labor at best. Every PC must roll succeed on a Strength check or movement is impossible for 10 minutes x the number of points the check was failed by. Anyone not in some kind of shelter beyond normal cold-weather gear must save or take 1 hit point of damage for every 10 minutes in the cold.

Ice Storm+ Encounter--As above plus roll again--something's coming.
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The Zak Hack (Old School 5e D&D)

Note to redditors:

This post has been Reddited, which--as usual--means a bunch of weird comments. The top comment at the moment is that there's no reason to use hacked 5e instead of an old school system. There are lots of reasons, of course, to take a random example: the saving throws are better. Like, having written literally hundreds of pages of old-school modules I can tell you that going "save vs dragon breath" when there's slippy oil on the floor never makes any more sense than it did the first time. Anyway, if you have sane comments, feel free to leave them...

David Decree made this

How to play fifth edition D&D old school style:

EDIT: This is all summarized in a nice clean fan-made pdf document here.

Character gen like this

8 hour rests to get spells/abilities back

No cantrips

No bards

No feats

No inspiration

Group initiative (each side rolls a d6)

Old school healing + Death & Dismemberment

"Concentration" spells sometimes require literal concentration--depends on the spell. It's not just "you need to be awake", sometimes you won't be able to do other stuff.

Starting at 5th level non-casting classes and monsters add their naked d20 to-hit roll to damage (to counter Caster supremacy once fireballs kick in)

Monsters are custom-built when the players are over 5th high level, the monsters roll d20s and d30s for damage.

Rangers like this

Paladins like this

Witch/Warlock like this

Clerics like this

...ideally I'd like to rewrite all the classes and spells and so not have to do the +d20-kludge, but this works for now better than any other game so there we go.
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Tarot Rooms

-A tarot reading always implies the immediate proximity of rooms corresponding to the cards in the reading.

-The advice represented by the cards will offer the key to finding those rooms.

-With one exception (The Fool Room), these tarot rooms always appear inside a structure—-a castle, a tower, a tomb, a labyrinth, catacomb, etc. --in other words, in a dungeon. It will be a dungeon with other kinds of rooms and occupants in it, often an otherwise quite vanilla dungeon. They can exist parasitically within any dungeon of sufficient size and complexity.

-If one room appears inside the structure, all other tarot rooms will be in the same structure—and in a specific relation to that room.

-“Major Arcana” rooms (i.e. rooms matching cards without suits) will always be behind secret doors or otherwise hidden.

-Each room has many correspondences and sympathies, not all are known. What is known is that each kind of room corresponds to a kind of individual, and if one of these sympathetic entities is present, the effect of visiting a tarot room is altered.

-Rooms of the various suits are sympathetic to individuals of a level and class corresponding to the room's suit and number:

All rooms of the suit of Swords are sympathetic to fighters (or rangers, paladins, barbarians, etc) of the matching level.
Cups are sympathetic to clerics (or druids, etc) of the matching level.

Coins/Pentacles are sympathetic to thieves (or rogues, specialists, acrobats, etc) of the matching level.

Wands are sympathetic to wizards (or witches, warlocks, illusionists, etc) of the matching level.

-Relative to the center of the structure:
Coin rooms are always south,
Cup rooms always east,
Wand rooms always west,
and Sword rooms always north.

-Each room generally contains life-sized, jointed, painted, wooden mannequins, set out in a tableau with painted backdrops and stages matching the design of the card matching the room. In some circumstances, the figures will animate and act--they are called Tarot Golems. They usually cannot speak but can understand any humanoid language. Their stats are scalable to however hard the adventure is supposed to be unless otherwise noted.

-The order of the rooms corresponds to dungeon "levels" or fortress "levels" depending on the structure, so, for example, if the rooms were in a maze below ground, the 4 of cups would be 4 levels beneath the earth, but if the rooms were in a tower, the 4 of cups would be 4 levels above--that is, on the 4th floor of the structure.

The first few rooms are as follows:

OUTSIDE THE STRUCTURE

The Fool Room -- These secret rooms can normally only be found on a fumble roll (any fumbled task in the right area might uncover it, not just a fumbled search roll), though an idiot (Int 4 or less or Wis 4 or less) can find one on a proper search in the right area.

Entering the room creates a new soul which then appears in the Fool Golem. As soon as the threshold is crossed, the jester or idiot mannequin in the tableau will animate, completely naive about the world. It will be fascinated by everything, and immediately seek to learn (wordlessly) about the world, experimenting with every object it sees. Its Intelligence and Wisdom are 3, its other stats are generated as a standard peasant. It will in all likelihood leave the room as soon as it has learned all it can and start to explore outside.

Note that a new soul and golem is still generated when the door is opened even if one has already left the room, so repeated visits (including by the Fool Golem itself) can result in any number of moronic, inquisitive golems wandering the countryside (they may be dressed differently, just as various tarot decks are done in different styles). Once outside, the golem will trade almost any service for more information (much of which it will promptly forget), and intimations of this fact will appear in the heads of any ambitious person it encounters. 

If any idiots (anyone of Int 4 or less or Wis 4 or less) are present when the Fool Room is opened, the fool mannequin will not animate. Instead, the mannequin of the Fool's cat will animate and wave to the stupid character(s) and take their hand(s) in its paw. It will silently offer to trade any pieces of adventuring gear the idiot(s) has/have for any brand new item extant in the setting of equal value. The items will be of high quality, fit for the coming adventure and will be brought out by the cat from behind the wooden curtains of the tableau. Only the cat can bring things from behind the curtain and only if the space behind the curtain is unobserved. Looking behind it reveals nothing. 


ON LEVEL ONE

Ace of Wands Room--The Tarot Golem in this room is a crawling hand of ordinary size like Thing in the Addams family or one of those wooden articulated artist's model hands and it is infused with energy and creativity. It can cast any 1st level spell that the GM invents on the spot once per round, and will do so in order to protect its spellbook, which contains 20 unheard-of first level spells.


If any first level wizards (or witches, or warlocks, etc) are present, they will immediately receive a wordless instruction that they must invent a 1st level spell on the spot. They have 14 seconds to do so. If the GM does not approve the spell, they may try twice more. If they successfully invent a spell, the golem will give the PC (s) its spellbook.

Ace of Cups Room--A vast iron cup fills the room, seething with the energies of generosity. It will fill with 1-10 doses of healing nectar (d4 hp per dose) precisely proportional to the amount of love that enters the room when the door opens (0 being the door opening on a combat of all against all, 10 being an ecstatic polyamorous orgy).


The first time any first-level clerics (druids, etc) are present when the door is opened, the cup will be of perfectly ordinary size and empty, but will immediately seem special to the cleric. It cannot be moved unless holy liquid is poured into it by the cleric or clerics. If it is, the cup will then be movable by the clergyindividual(s) in question and will possess magic properties: neither it nor whatever is poured into it can ever be taken from the cleric(s) or from any member of their faith it is gifted to.

Ace of Coins Room-- The handlike Tarot Golem here sits inside a large pentagram of gold-dust that nearly fills the room. Upon being discovered it will immediately crawl toward the nearest source of wealth and drag it back inside the pentagram. "Wealth" is here defined as any hoard of coins larger than the one currently inside the pentagram (which begins with nothing inside). If they do not stand in the pentagram, it's possible the nearest "hoard" will be the PCs' purses. The golem has one hit die and if the PCs do not handle the situation carefully they may not realize the vast potential of the treasure-finding device they've stumbled upon--though the golem will regenerate inside the pentagram if the room is empty and it is unobserved.

If any first-level thieves (or rogues or specialists, etc) are present when the door is opened then the hand will crawl over to them and open, palm up. If a coin is placed in the palm by such a thief, the hand will then draw for the thief a map indicating the largest source of other coins of that metal within one mile. It will do nothing else.

Ace of Swords Room -- The Tarot Golem in this room, consisting of a sword held in a slithering and snakelike armature, will immediately attack making use of radical insight. It knows each of its enemies' greatest weaknesses due to unfailing revelation. Any successful hit will be a critical.

The first time any first level fighters (or rangers, or barbarians, etc) are present when the room is opened, the golem will only attack them and will have hit points equal to the combined hp of all 1st level fighters present (at the start of the fight). If the golem is defeated by the first level fighter(s) without aid from anyone else, it will offer them its sword. The sword will (only under these conditions) allow the bearer to sense a single enemy within line-of-sight's greatest weakness once per week.

The Magician's Room-- The invisible door to this secret room can only be detected using magic. The Tarot Golem inside has stats as a wizard of a level equal to the combined hd of the creatures in the room+1, though it will only use spells of the transmutation type. When the door is opened, it will nod politely and then begin to follow the party. It is delighted by transformations--if the party should transform anything in its presence, the excited golem will use magic or guile to transform something else, more or less at random.  It will otherwise be quite neutral.

Transformations for this purpose generally exclude mere destruction--the alteration must be something which changes a thing to a way it never was before while not appreciably decreasing its level of complexity and organization. Living to dead doesn't count as a transformation, but cleric-to-lich or enemy-to-ally would.

If any wizards (etc) are present when the room is opened, the Magician will go to work demonstrating its abilities, lifting the objects off its mountebank table (cups, coins, knives, wands) and changing them one into the next. It will then enthusiastically gesture to the wizard. If the wizard then transforms something, the golem will bow and hold out its hand. If the wizard places any object into the golem's hand, the golem will change it into an object which will come in handy to the wizard in the future, though the wizard will not realize it at the time. It will not follow the party as described above.


ON LEVEL TWO

The Two of Wands Room--As soon as the door to this room is opened, the golem will push forward through the door, intent on moving directly toward the most powerful magic-using creature in the entire structure and striking up a mutually beneficial relationship with them. It has abilities as a second-level wizard and will use them to banish any impediments in the most direct way possible.

If any wizards of 2nd level are present when the door is opened the golem will take them by the hand and, using signs, describe the location of some nearby, as yet undiscovered, place of interest (a treasure hoard, a magic library, etc) and gesture that they go seek it. It will attempt to bar any non-2nd-level-wizards from following. If the wizard(s) go alone and return successful (and the golem is still alive), the golem will allow the wizard to copy the golem's spellbook. The spellbook will contain at least one useful spell the wizard would not otherwise be able to access.

Two of Cups Room--The two figures will briefly acknowledge anyone entering and then go back to drinking. As soon as they are, the GM should add another entry to the random encounter table: an NPC party precisely like the PC party aside from two things:

-They will be associated with the opposite god
-They will be erotic counterparts of the PCs and find them immediately attractive

If second level clerics are present when the room is found then one of the golems will offer the cleric a drink. If they take the cup and drink from it without suspicion, one of the golems will be revealed to be a 2nd level cleric of the same god and will, in its golem way, go about attempting to found a church of that god within the structure in an attempt to curry favor with the cleric. The NPC party will still be added to the random encounter table.

Two of Coins Room--This juggling golem juggles under any circumstances. It begins by juggling two coins. The coins are clearly worth 200gp each (go ahead and add zeroes to that figure if 200gp isn't enough to entice your party). If either of the coins are taken (it's easy) it will immediately begin looking for other things to juggle, seizing on the first cup/container, bladed weapon or wand/staff/rod/stick it can find to replace the lost coin and begin juggling again. It cannot be damaged in any way but otherwise has stats as a 2nd level thief.

When the coin or coins are replaced, the rest of the dungeon/structure will change: for each coin missing, half the coins in the place will be replaced with their weight in cups, (useless) wands or swords, as appropriate. So if, for example, one of the coins is replaced with a blade, half the coins in the entire dungeon (including any on the party) will be replaced with their weight in swords, if the other coin is replaced with a stick, the other half of the coins in the dungeon will be replaced with wands. If both coins are replaced with swords, all the coins in the dungeon turn to swords. In any event, putting a coin back returns that half of the dungeon's collective hoard to normal.

If a second-level thief steals one of the coins then the golem can replace the coin with the nearest convenient noncoin object, and the coins in the dungeon will be replaced with an equivalent weight's worth of second-level thieves of various races. These thieves will immediately scatter throughout the dungeon.

Two of Swords Room--There will always be another room on the far side of this one, accessible only this way--and that room will always clearly contain something of value. The Two of Swords Golem will defend that room with her life, but if no-one attempts to pass she will simply meditate quietly. She will also defend anyone who peacefully occupies her room.

Her stats are as a second-level fighter with two exceptions: her starting hit points equal the combined hit points of whoever she faces (at the moment the fight begins) and she has two actions per round--the first unfailing parries the first attack against her (even magic) and the second unfailingly strikes a target.

If a second-level fighter joins her in meditation for eight hours (while, for example, the rest of the party sleeps) they will learn the secrets of either blind-fighting or dual-wielding. Mechanics depend on the system, but generally both are still done at some kind of penalty, just not at the usual, big, one.

The High Priestess Room--This room cannot be found by looking for it--the entrance to this secret room can only be found via passive perception checks. The priestess herself is exquisitely carved and articulated, a perfect golem cleric of the structure's original architect culture and faith with stats equivalent to a cleric two levels higher than the combined hit dice of everyone in the room.

The Priestess Golem will answer questions with oblique gestures. If a PC can manage to do absolutely nothing in her presence for 2 minutes, she will hand them a small box carved from a mysterious blue stone. In the box will be a tool which will allow the creature to overcome their greatest weakness one time. A spindly wizard might receive a potion of strength, an illiterate barbarian might be given an earring which whispers a text, etc The boon only works on the character in question.

Once the door is opened for the first time, it will remain open, the High Priestess will begin collecting recruits for her faith, drawing recruits from whoever wanders in. She will give them each a boon, slowly turning wandering monsters into more dangerous and zealous wandering monsters--each time the GM rolls a random encounter, mark a tick next to the next creature down on the table--that creature (or one of them) has been converted and now has a boon.

If female clerics of any faith are present when the door is open, the High Priestess will gesture to the ground before her, offering them the opportunity to kneel at her feet and be converted. If they refuse, she will draw for them a map directly to the nearest exit. If the clerics leave, she will station several of her new recruits at that exit so they can never come back.

To be continued...

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D100 Murder Victims

For Demon City, but broadly useful

1, Stabbed in the neck with a hatpin

2, Laughed to death at the news—cardiac arrest

3, Beaten with a Bible

4, Drowned under a solar swimming pool cover

5, Ripped apart by dogs

6, Drowned in liquid fat

7, Mercy-killed during late-stage rabies 

8, Burned alive in an otherwise untouched scene

9, Died of shock after looking in a mirror

10, Brain hernia after drinking too much orange soda

11, Starvation after refusing to eat anything not from Alpha Beta—a defunct supermaket chain

12, Hit by an ice cream truck

13, Elevator cable cut

14, Single shot through the floor from below

15, Strangled with her own bra

16, Suffocated in a coffin

17, Two victims—their medications switched

18, Blunt trauma as an exorcist attempts to “drive an evil spirit out”

19, Caught between a subway car and platform

20, Bitten by a snake curled in a sink drain

21, Fell into a jet engine

22, Stabbed with long forks and eaten

23, Ripped open by a shark as aquarium glass shatters

24, Cliffside road abruptly crumbles

25, Lunchroom suicide in a busy office

26, Drowned in a hotel-top water cistern

27, Strangled with a telephone charger

28, Electrocuted by headphones

29, Every man named “Mark Walsh” dies on the same day of apparently unrelated causes

30, Fallen off a building and landed on a movie marquee

31, Apparent suicide at a gun range

32, Clotheslined while riding a motorcycle

33, Crushed in a garbage truck

34, Woman convinced she is a lizard run over by a bus while crawling across the street

35, Drowned during intercourse

36, Impaled on the raised arm of an equestrian statue

37, Crushed in a trash compactor

38, Beaten to death in prison by father of victim’s own alleged victim

39, Choked to death, throat stuffed with frogs

40, Shot by a clown

41, Throat cut—clear attempt to perform the (anatomically impossible) ‘Columbian necktie’

42, Drowned in holy water

43, Child chewed its way out of mother’s stomach

44, Found bloated in the river, weighed down by a refrigerator

45, Set self on fire to protest a government ousted a year earlier

46, Sewn to another victim, starved to death—partially eaten by each other

47, Bisected in a surgical setting

48, Chained to a radiator until burned to death

49, Stabbed through the eye with an 8-inch heel

50, Choked on a pearl necklace

51, Locked in an oven

52, Poisoned by arsenic from an old taxidermied claw

53, Faces of victims peeled off and switched

54, Ritual murder with wooden masks in a Taco Bell after closing caught on cctv

55, Hole drilled in head with corkscrew

56, Eyes pulled out with tweezers and placed in a cup

57, Crushed under a Dig Dug machine

58, Filmed in prison on the other side of the world 3 hours ago, dead here now

59, Disabled and killed in the hospital by a nurse carrying a sack of knives

60, Found in a python’s belly

61, Found in a home completely identical to their own, but miles away

62, Starved to death locked in a closet off a busy elementary-school classroom

63, Fingers removed, bled to death from hands

64, Boiled alive inside an oil drum

65, Amputee has own claw-hand shoved down throat

66, Drawn and quartered by four Miatas

67, Sealed in a steel cage and thrown in the sea

68, Bitten by a decapitated snake head

69, Dropped in a decorative aquarium of box jellyfish

70, Cut cleanly in half with a circular saw

71, Heart removed by a trained surgeon

72, Covered in molasses and eaten by rats

73, Dropped in tar and run over

74, Parts of body found in widely-separated alligators

75, Belly pierced with sharpened chopsticks

76, Force-fed nails

77, Crucified by a yoga class

78, Skull-rupture filled with hatching baby spiders

79, Thrown through elevated train car window

80, Tied kinbaku-style with barbed wire

81, Head crushed in a vice

82, Sprayed with an aerosol bottle of cyanide

83, Starved after tongue melted to roof of mouth

84, Stomach filled with sharp filings, intestines torn by electromagnet

85, Teacher stabbed to death by students with pencils

86, Forced heroin overdose

87, Landmine under a mall parking lot

88, Killed by a thai delivery guy while a cam girl overheard through her screen via laptop in the next room

89, Found dead in a (decommissioned) electric chair

90, Strangled with pig intestines

91, Sigil-shaped area of torso completely removed, cut clean through

92, Upper facial area left frozen with liquid nitrogen, shattered by prying cat

93, City bus driver is shot, motive unknown, bus drives off a bridge overpass

94, Force fed C-4 charge

95, Retired Colonel dead in drawing room, poisoned tea. Found by underage mistress.

96, Puddle of acid near 4-way intersection, eats away tires causing pile-up

97, Stabbed with glass cake spatula

98, Pile of heads found under Chuck-E-Cheese ballpit

99, Wooden Christ on life-sized crucifix sawn off and replaced with human victim

100, Tied down and covered in scorpions

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The Fetch

A ghost for any game. Mechanically not too special, but its ecology should keep players busy for at least an hour, since it has to trick characters into hurting each other.

Fetch

A fetch is the ghost of a lost soul that takes a form identical to its victim in order to replace them. Being bound to a given location until they can successfully bring about the death of a human and take its place, the fetch searches for the weakest mortal it can find and attempts to sow fatal confusion.

Friends of the victim who are unaware of the nature of the fetch take psychological damage as if they'd just seen their friend commit whatever atrocity the fetch just has or take whatever wound the fetch has appeared to take.

If a fetch is tricked into imitating a form tattooed with a spell of banishment, its ectoplasmic skin will begin to dissolve and the ghost will be exorcised.

Typical Fetch

(Demon City stats)

Calm: 2

Agility: as target 

Toughness: as target (but see below)

Perception: 2

Appeal: as target

Cash: 0

Knowledge: 3

Calm Check: 5

Special abilities:

Serial Ectoplasmic Form: Fetches condense into bodies that are identical to those of their victims in most ways (voice, mannerisms, etc) and are vulnerable to mundane attacks. However, if this body is slain, the Fetch’s invisible and its incorporeal soul remains until exorcised.

In combat, the fetch is normally indistinguishable from the victim.

Weaknesses:

A fetch is always bound to the specific geographical location where it died (a building, a graveyard, a lake, a hospital, a neighborhood, a dungeon, etc) and cannot leave until it brings about the death of a victim and thereby replaces it permanently.

A fetch cannot directly physically harm the target it has imitated and must usually employ deception to cause it to be killed by some other party. Its most common tactic is to use the new form to kill one of the victim’s friends, get “caught” by other companions, then flee and conceal itself until these companions kill their “dangerous” friend.

A fetch cannot adopt a new form or become incorporeal until its current target has left the area the fetch haunts or that body is "killed".

Most fetches cannot bear the sound of bells due to association with church bells—in some cases, the feared sound is different and is associated with the way the creature died (for example, a victim of a drunk driving accident may not be able to stand the sound of a beer can opening).

If a fetch adopts a form tattooed with scriptures of banishment, its new skin will burn and the fetch will be exorcised.

And now, a word from our sponsor...

What 1000 Feet Away Looks Like

If you write tabletop RPG stuff, you're used to using resources totally not designed for you. This is because if you write tabletop RPG stuff, almost no resources are designed for you.

Here's one: RPGs are full of ranges--Silence 15' radius, the Ruger is accurate up to 1000' yards...ever wonder what various ranges actually look like?

Somebody was writing an article about how big don't-sell-drugs-to-school-children zones should be-(a subject upon wish I have no opinion I which to discuss with game bloggers), but they did provide a useful illustration of some ranges:

So using this I figured out the Drowned Woman Ghost can stray no further than 500' from the body of water where she committed suicide.

And now, a word from our sponsor:

Donate to the Demon City project here.  If you don't know what that means, go here.

House of D100 Corpses

HEY IF YOU'RE HERE FROM THAT GEEK & SUNDRY WORLD-BUILDING THING
Here's an index to that stuff.

D100 Corpses and What They Were Carrying


Crowdsourced on my Google+ RPG circle here, if you wanna be added, you gotta send me a message on G+ saying you want to be in the RPG circle.

1, Human thief. 3 torches, one slowly burning through her leg. 5 days rations, 20' rope. Throwing axe inscribed "To Bella, may it always find its mark" buried in abdomen.

2, Kimmerian warrior, face carefully burned away; sword, dagger, hand axe all neatly broken and arrayed around the body; five war-dog harnesses strapped around thigh, each with crusted blood.

3, Adult Tengu. Scroll of feather fall. Tinderbox. Bedroll. Bokken (wooden sword) carved with shifting runes of unknown origin. 

4, Drowned corpse of a princess- ruby necklace, gold crown, 100 gp, and a music box that has mesmerizing melody and leaks copious amounts of water when opened. 

5, Half-elf Thief with sting mark in neck, dagger, collapsible mini fishing pole,  thieve's tools,  fishing weights & hooks (some highly & lightly magnetized), fishing line,  blowgun w/ 10 darts, 10 slot bandolier with 9 live wasps expertly bound & in the slots.

6, Eviscerated ettin. Longspear with a flint head. Bark shield. Clay pipe and a bag of extra strong pipeweed. Elf jerky. 

7, Corpse whose face has been replaced with a hole which looks into a dungeon. Blue skin, wears fantasy Russian finery. Carries a random key, a rusty lantern (squeaks, +1 in 6 chance of encounters) with 3 hours of oil, a braided blanket of many colours, a knife on a 5' stick, and a dehydrated octopus in a jar (add water to bring back to life, acts as 3rd level thief). 

8, Disemboweled druid. Silver-thread robe. A golden sickle. Oracle bone. Small collection of bawdy pictures. 

9, Halfling with case full of expensive, impressive, distinctive earrings worth dungeon levelx1000 gp. They will be immediately by recognized by dwarves as stolen goods.

10, Halfling: stomach has burst open with strange fungal growth and is filled with gems, coins, little keepsakes, soggy canvas that was once a painting, nails, spoons, marbles. The gems and coins are worth d100 x 10.

11, Human. Teeth weirdly overgrown, puncturing through the cheeks. Within mouth is a fairy, sentenced to imprisonment for an ill-considered jape. Can only be released by smashing the teeth, or cutting into the head. 

12, Mutilated merchant. Bag of glass beads. Basket of hop cones. Sack of beaver tails. Coin pouch containing 6d20 gold pieces (counterfeit). 

13, Corpse is actually hands legs, head, clothes from several different corpses carefully arranged by goblins to seem like one dead body. pack contains 30gp and spoiled rations but coming within 5' puts a scent on you that goblins' dogs can track

14, Female elf, hanging underneath a bridge. She has been picked clean but the rope is enchanted and can on the right command move along the ground like a snake, climb trees etc, and can even tie a knot in itself. The rope is 20 ft long, and if it gets cut loses the enchantment.

15, Two corpses, both humans, impaled on the same longspear. the spear is lined with barbs, and it looks like both died in pain trying to work the weapon through their bodies. Simple leather hoods,  shoddy leather jerkins, and rusting farm tools suggest they were hapless hirelings. Only one has a leather pouch on their belt, containing a handful of 2d6 coppers and 4 red acorn seeds. 

16, Crumpled Arbalestier, her head stove in. Broken crossbow, jack-and-chains, satchelful of mewling mandrakes. 

17, Burnt bugbear. Brigandine. Exquisite katzbalger and baselard set (stolen). Tin cup. Jug of plum brandy. Diary which reads like a food porn blog written in undercommon. 

18, A curse of beauty: the first person to touch the corpse recieves the curse, they become increasingly alluring to everyone gaining 1 point of charisma each day. When their charisma reaches 18 then each day they gain a follower of the DMs choosing. Jealousy and rivalry will follow, duels will be fought in the cursed's name, murder, obsessive stalking. Kings will send armies to collect that person. The curse, once discovered, can be removed at a temple for 500 gold per point of charisma back to their starting charisma. Once those enamoured of the character realise they were tricked they will become very angry.

19, Thief - two purses, one containing 237 sp/gp, the other containing 4 small gems worth 50 sp/gp each. A small knife covered in blood

20, Small humanoid, dressed in filthy rags.  Face beaten in brutally, skin on body covered in scars (runes or arcane writing of some kind.)  Right hand clutches a rattle from a snake, left hand a lemon.

21, Druidic Novitiate,  deadskin mask, pair of jagged sickles, ogham-staff upon which is writ a sequence of riddles referring to the hunger of the moon, white robe torn and stained with blood. 

22, Crowman 4' tall, stabbed. backpack emptied next to him, ripped up pillow, a slice of bread. one wing is false (actually that wing was severed long ago) and conceals a pouch containing: 1d6x100gp worth of gems, a vial of powdered mushroom (snort to have pleasant hallucinations for 3d4 hours, also able to see invisible ghosts) and a glass globe with a gold sniffing scarab inside (flies towards gold when within 5')

23, Pulverized prince. Brocade finery. Bottle of hippocras. Chicken fingers. Chastity belt. 

24, Imperial Cataphract torn in half. Lamellar klibanion over double layer of mail. Spear, mace, axe and two kinds of sword. Top half fifty feet away from bottom half. Look of surprise frozen on his face.

25, A thief, completely flat, thieve’s tools, daggers etc. all crushed flat and useless. Rope maybe still usable. Partial maps of this and some other places, mostly correct.

26, Decapitated dwarf. Double-bitted axe. Beard balm. Toupée. A biscuit. 

27, half orc in possession of his own memoir of surprising insight and clarity detailing his birth in the Pitch Hoarding and his subsequent inability to integrate with orc society and eventual quest to find his mother. Includes hand-drawn maps and sketches of important figures. Also: crummy drugs and rabbit meat.

28, Victim of a teleportation mishap. Half fused with a stone wall, head and an arm and a leg sticking out. Digging him out of the wall with pickaxes or similar will gain access to a 3rd level magic-users's spellbook and 1d8x100gp.

29, Plump blueskinned woman ready to burst, one red pump on her left foot, a snake grenade clenched in her fist.

30, 14th level wizard covered in flour lying facedown in a pile of marbles and caltrops in a scorched pool of oil and lard, arrows in his back. Nothing of value but the trail from his body leads to a very smug looking party of adventurers loaded with 2467gp worth of talismans and a loaded spellbook.

31, skeleton carefully wrapped in thin gold foil, head is filled with steel wool, removing the steel wool reanimates the thing (treat as 9th lvl fighter, 1/2 damage from slashing and piercing), removing the foil grants you an indefatigable enemy

32, Adventurer or a hobo, hard to tell which. Dirty stinking worn out clothes. Golden necklaces, wristbands and rings. A chain is wrapped around the corpse, the other end trailing into darkness. Every time the corpse is approached, something yanks it away, towards the dark.

33, Halfling. Disembowled with intestine wrapped around neck. Nothing in pockets but a map to a country no one has heard of called Taured. 

34, A lizardperson, but so difficult to tell due to so many parts missing, sliced out or off until it's a "butterflied" torso with stumpy appendages.  A spear, shield, and crude breast plate are carelessly piled a few feet from the corpse.

35, The pope. He's actually still alive, but very poorly, needs help now! Saving his life will carry a big reward.

36, Male orc missing both legs, lying in large a pool of fresh blood, broken wine bottle beside him. Carrying a leather pouch around waist filled with (bottles of? -z) different sizes and shapes. Cause of death, bled out from leg wounds. 

37, The corpse of a gambler turned literal dead-bead debtor. His throat is slit with his own playing card; his own dice have been deeply thrust into his eye sockets with snake eyes facing up. An IOU addressed to the presumed murderer hangs from his mouth.

38, A flattened... Something. Can't really tell what it was. like vertically flattened so the body is a roughly circular pancake of goo and leather, contained within the foot print of something humongous. Valuables include 2d6 silver coins flattened like a penny run over by a train. 

39, goblin chef with spatula, knife set, salt, d10 sauce bottles, dried mushrooms, fancy hat. monster cookbook, goat fat, herbs and spices in tiny clay jars

40, The corpse appears to be a fairly well off (if foppish) adventurer in fashionable but durable clothing (elven/fey-weave worth 200 gp, resistant to normal wear-and-tear, staining.) with rough marks on his neck indicating somebody choked him. His pockets are notably emptied, but a highly valuable jeweled amulet dangles loosely from his neck. This is, in fact, a necklace of strangulation.

41, Cow. In its belly the jade egg of unreason. 

42, A near skeletal corpse, dressed festively in the style of a local holiday, buried inside a giant pot of boiling hot pudding. A holly stake has been lodged in the corpse's chest cavity. If the stake is removed, the corpse animates as a vampire. The taste of the pudding is off, for it's literally blood pudding.

43, A pile of 1d10+10 albino plague mice, each laying on its back with its legs curled facing up. 

44, Crass sea cucumber wife in the tattered bone and brine finery of a better era, her tangled intestines choking a brachiopod man. In her bag of hands three gold and stone rings. 

45, Orator from the imperial capital, throat slit and tongue removed. Items on person: crudely forged love letter from the wife of a diplomat, and empty coin purse that never held money. Also, carefully hidden legal document securing ownership of an ancient dwarven mine. 

46, Featureless corpse of a Doppleganger. Nasty gut wound. Postmortem reflex causes it to try to imitate features of those touching it for next 1d10+5 minutes and sticks to last appearance it took after that.

47, Dwarven skeleton. No hands. Top front teeth have numbers one to six scrimshawed on them. If teeth taken, and one is held in hand while character is rolling any die, tooth disintegrates and die rolls that number if possible.

48, This ancient corpse sits in a position of prayer or meditation. It is the pristine remains of a holy man who remained incorrupt through death. The corpse's mummified flesh is poisonous to saprophages, thus remaining unviolated.The prayer beads or vestments worn by the mummy indicate the holy site to where it may be returned, where it is attended (and perhaps even venerated) by lay worshipers.

49, Corpse in moldering floral button-up and sandals; small box around neck with mysteriously created pictures of ~20 nearby beings, rooms, or treasures

50, Mangled and half-eaten body of a young man in monk's robes, still clutching a crumpled scroll of Summon.

51, Psi-warrior run through with crystal spear, has three pearls of power and a colorful plumed mask. Chimeric spirit guide also pinned, trying to escape, but only visible to people sleeping, hallucinating or insane. Promptly leads to master's killer when freed, will serve as familiar to whoever avenges

52, A fat stirge shot recently through with an otherwise ordinary elvish arrow. Examining its glittery gullet or proboscis will show its last meal was unicorn.

53, A plague physician in full bird mask outfit.  Body completely unmarked, flesh is strangely waxy rather than decayed.  Satchel holds herbs (more aromatic than medicinal), scalpels, saws and many small glass cups with scorch marks.

54, Dead tax collector killed on the job. Carries various purses containing a total of 1d100 coins of every type up to gold pieces plus 1d10 platinium pieces and 1d6 gems of random value. Also holds in hand tax records with checklist of persons on collection route.

55, dark elf with fearsome chest wound carrying cruelly serrated crossbow bolts and an accurate chart of the motions of the winds over the nearest sea for the next 4 weeks written in an ancient elvish script. If translated it's worth 1000gp per relevant day left to sailors

56, A fucking huge barbarian: backstabbed. His hands clutched in rigor mortis around his two-handed sword. Inscribed on the sword are the words "Over my dead body".

57, Dead, eight-limbed elf. Face of confused agony. Four arms and legs are flesh; these are limp as sausages. The other four are bone and ligament: phased out of her body and posed as if escaping. Tumbled aside: a book full of notes and a spell of Wake Skeleton.

58, the desiccated husk of a mummified monk, sitting perfectly upright, hand in esoteric position, with a face of serenity. skin rock hard and golden brown. he appears to have self-embalmed. at his feet lie a neat bundle of religious tracts, a dried-out quill and ink pot, and several empty jars. a herbalist might be able to identify that the first two contain traces of a curious mixture of resins and toxins. the last contain traces of vomit. if dissected, his stomach contains a number of river stones. his eternal tranquility is marred by the single word of graffiti carved across his brow: "DICK".

59, A large obese human corpse clothed in bear fur. Close inspection reveals a faint rumbling coming from inside. There is a halfling sleeping in the eviscerated remains, if woken he quickly gets up and throwing a dark look the player's way, stalks off mumbling about needing to find a new bed without assholes disturbing him. In his hand he clasps a cleaver, and a rusty hook hangs from his belt.

60, Emaciated adventurer corpse in a gibbet.  Empty pack and waterskin.  Purse contains gold appropriate for level of dungeon.  Gold ring on finger is magical.  Whoever takes the ring off the finger takes the place of the corpse in the gibbet.

61, A child: unmarked, unclothed, starting to rot, covered in snails. Their movements map the safest way through a dungeon.

62, Dismembered body with bloody handaxe in one hand. Neatly written suicide note nearby, no explanation of how they doed it. 

63, Middle-aged man, unshaven, wearing green. Beaten to death. Index and middle fingers recently cut off. Has broken longbow, empty purse, cheaply-printed pamphlets advocating for a peasant uprising.

64, A spidery, thin occultist sits bent over an old ouija board, her blood staining it but dead by unknown causes. The planchette points at "YES".

65, A dwarf that has been stripped of everything. Luxurious beard is coated in oils and waxes though. Beard can provide d10 torches.

66, Monk covered with tattoos. Mouth stuffed with poison mushrooms, emasculated, gang symbol branded on chest.

67, Old Slavic-looking man with thick moustache and hairy forearms. Wears rough homespun peasant clothes and leather apron. A very sharp boning knife is stuck into his neck. He carries a short-handled mallet and 3d6 strips of jerky, made from some unidentifiable meat.

68, A normal sized frog, lodged in it's belly is a well cut diamond on a gold ring, the diamond is the size of a human eyeball

69, A couple of thieves, covered in black oozing stab wounds with looks of immense pain of their faces. They have small cut wounds upon them where it was clear they once had items or purses. A small note written in some sort of thieves cant is all that you can find

70, A large fighter, placed onto its back with its sword laying upon its armoured chest covered by both hands. A gold coin is placed over each eye

71, The bodies of several lowborn riffraff are impaled upon pikes, their last expressions warped in extreme agony. They serve as bleak reminders of what happens to those who reach beyond their bounds. One of the dead upstarts clenches a small slip of parchment in his fist. It holds a clue about the local ruler's dread secret.

72, Bloated ill-dressed maiden with a parasitic wasp frog demon chimaera in her bosom and gold coins in her ears. 

73, Dead, dirty drunkard covered in a film of his own puke, clutches a bottle of whiskey so potent you can get a contact high just by coming within 5 ft. The mark of station in the man's pocket proves him as once a distinguished figure, but some terrible, unknown fate laid him truly low. 

74, Small stout bloated creature with rusty skin floats in a puddle mixed with it's black blood. It wears a silver crown (worth 200sp). Upon closer inspection the body bares several names carved into it's flesh. Some are foreign. Some are familiar. 3d20 names glow with a golden light.

75, The butcher's son, in pigskin gloves.

76, The corpse of a doomsayer preacher, wears plain priestly vestments, a necklace of garlic cloves plus a silver holy symbol, and sandals. Her belt holds a silver dagger of ritual sacrifice, two vials of holy water, and some incense. Some sort of untitled logbook  lies in the filth a few feet away. Someone has torn away the last few pages.

77, A bald monk with a forehead full of holy ash. Asphyxiated, cheeks full and near-bursting. Gums bloody, teeth missing. Fat, jewel-eyed idol jammed in his mouth cavity; it would not have fit past the opening of his lips.

78, Emaciated, panther-headed humanoid creature, wrapped in bandages at the wrists and ankles. It clutches one of its young--a newborn--barely alive. The younger creature will imprint on the first living thing that pays it any attention.

79, A tiger sized cat which clutches the tail of a slightly smaller feline in it's jaws. Ad infinitum until you have a ring of cats ever decreasing in size biting each other's tails. Each feline caries a silver bell around it's neck that chimes with an individual's last words. (Add wind for spookiness.)

80, Dead man in fool's garb, almost skeletal, lying face down, grabbing punctured side and reaching towards blank wall. Has two vials of laughing gas and a 50' rope of tied color handkerchiefs up sleeves.

81, Human in well-worn, travel suitable version of a distant court's livery. Corpse has already been ransacked, and has no items of monetary value or weapons. His or her satchel has been upturned, and there are 1D4 letters, marked with first names or initials, destined for notable figures in the next nearest human kingdom strewn around it.

82, A skinny young man with close-cropped, light brown hair and greyish blue eyes, stripped of everything but his underwear and a leather cord necklace with a leather tag on it that says "Ben of ."

83, Human boy, age 13-15, silver dagger through heart, otherwise unharmed. enlarged canines, gray hair, unusual down on back of neck.

84, Young human wearing a life like demon costume. His right hand grips an amulet with a faded photo of a young maiden (100sp). His left clutches a half-eaten long rotted blt. The tag on the neck says "property of Rosco the Magnifico".

85, Loyal alsatian with a bottle of brandy in his teeth, matted with the blood of bandits

86, Half-elf woman. Charring on hands and mouth. Herbalism kit. Hunting knife. Short bow and 4 arrows. Five pieces of silver. 

87, A pirate who seems to have been bludgeoned to death with her own peg leg. In the hollow of the leg is the location of a treasure ship she sunk but could not savage due to rough seas.

88, An agnostic high priest adorned with 3d100gp worth of adornments. He grasps a wizard's spellbook with 1d6+5 spells of d10-2 levels each.

89, The singed body of an alchemist, wide-eyed with surprise, a broken beaker in each hand. The dead alchemist wears clothing appropriate to the profession, with pockets containing 250 gold pieces worth of alchemical supplies, including a potion belt able to hold 10 vials. 1d6+2 of them each holds a random mundane substance.

90, Pale sutler in a crumpled heap, stripped of all worldly possessions but tattered hose, bearing a contagion of terrible virulence.

91, A dead wizard and her 90% complete flesh golem. All it needs is a heart and the right words.

92, A termite mound raised over the pulped body of a dryad. Snacking on a bowl of termites - fried or roasted tastes best - confers barkskin for d4 hours.

93, Large human. Hands manacled together. Spear through side. Inside mouth is a bitten off ear. Inside stomach is a finger with a ring worth 2,000 gold and other body parts. Soon you will meet someone missing an ear and a finger and some other stuff.

94, One vertical half of a wizard with coins in their purse stamped with the adult face and name of a nearby nation's recently announced royal newborn.

95, Woman in a pit trap carrying a cage full of tagged mice, still living, along with notes on exactly which experiments were performed on which mice..

96, Replaces the next three results you would roll on this table: Garroted corpse resembling a random PC in broad but distinctive ways; hair/eye/skin color; social standing, gender, species, occupation etc. Pick a few, but each corpse bears all of these resemblances. PCs not matching this description are in no danger.

97, Nine eyeless weremice in a rat race trap holding brief and short cases of papers covered in arcane symbols. 

98, Body of a barefoot gnome in a drab nightgown and nightcap. Clutching a candlestick and a shoe. The letters 'WWW' are embroidered on the nightgown.

99, A message-bearer in livery: shot. The bad news lays in ashes but the body wears a satchel containing d4 more scrolls (50/50 chance good news or bad news about something on your hex or city map).

100, The burnt and body of a woman in rags, emitting a sulfurous odor.Next to her is a bag with 7 pairs of socks, apparently made of hair, and 2 gold, 3 silver and 5 copper.

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